Scientists: Sea levels likely to rise 1.3 metres in just 80 years
Scientists believe that by the year 2100 if Earth’s surface warms by another 3.5 degrees then sea levels are likely to rise by as much as 1.3 meters.
Leading experts believe that by the year 2100 if Earth’s surface warms by another 3.5 degrees then sea levels are likely to rise by as much as 1.3 meters. According to reports, a recently published peer-reviewed survey claims that by the year 2300 the ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland will have shed trillions of tones in mass resulting in a rise in sea level of up to five meters.
Less visible, but more devastating
According to a study in the journal Climate Atmospheric Science, ten per cent of the world’s population, roughly 770 million people resided in areas that is less than 5 meters above the high tide line. Experts believe that even if the goals set in the Paris climate treaty are met, the goal of capping global warming below 2C, the ocean level could still go up by around 2 meters by the year 2300.
As per reports, Earth’s average temperature has risen by just over one degree Celsius since before the industrial era. co-author Stefan Rahmstorf, head of Earth system analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) has reportedly claimed that the previous estimates of sea-level rise had been too low.
While gradual sea-level rise may be less visible than climate-enhanced hurricanes or persistent drought, they have the potential to ultimately prove very devastating. As per reports, one of the main drivers of sea-level rise in the last two decades has been the melting and disintegrating of Earth's two ice sheets. Greenland and West Antarctica are losing ice/mass six times faster than what was recorded back in 1990.
Over the course of the last decade, sea levels have gone up four millimetres every year but experts believe that the rate of sea-level rise will get faster and by the end of this century, it may even be 10 times faster.
(Representative Image)(Image Credit AP)
Published By : Shubham Bose
Published On: 11 May 2020 at 15:06 IST